*. THE ok 

PRAYER 

PERFECT 

A ND 

OTHER POEMS 



JAMES 
WHITCOMB 
I L E Y 




Book L 

GopghtN?.- 



? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/prayerperfectothOOrile 



THE PRAYER PERFECT 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

11 



WITH PICTURES BY 

WILL VAWTER 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1912, 

BY 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



All Rights Reserved 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & COMPANY 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



§CI.A320935 



THE PRAYER PERFECT 



EAR Lord! kind Lord! 
Gracious Lord ! I pray 
Thou wilt look on all I love, 

Tenderly to-day ! 
Weed their hearts of weariness; 

Scatter every care 
Down a wake of angel-wings 

Winnowing the air. 

Bring unto the sorrowing 

All release from pain; 
Let the lips of laughter 

Overflow again; 
And with all the needy 

O divide, I pray, 
This vast treasure of content 

That is mine to-day ! 



JUST TO BE GOOD 



T UST to be good— 
^J This is enough — enough ! 

O we who find sin's billows wild and rough, 
Do we not feel how more than any gold 
Would be the blameless life we led of old 
While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss ? 
Ah ! though we miss 
All else but this, 

To be good is enough! 



It is enough — 

Enough — just to be good ! 
To lift our hearts where they are understood ; 
To let the thirst for worldly power and place 
Go unappeased ; to smile back in God's face 
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss. 
Ah ! though we miss 
All else but this, 

To be good is enough ! 



i 



H ! tell me a tale of the airly days — 

Of the times as they ust to be ; 

'Tiller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays" 

Is a' most too deep f'er me ! 
I want plane facts, and I want plane words, 

Of the good old-fashioned ways, 
When speech run free as the songs of birds 
'Way back in the airly days. 



A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS 

Tell me a tale of the timber-lands — 

Of the old-time pioneers ; 
Somepin' a pore man understands 

With his feelins 's well as ears. 
Tell of the old log house, — about 

The loft, and the puncheon flore — 
The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out 3 

And the latch-string thrugh the doer. 

Tell of the things jest as they was — 

They don't need no excuse ! — 
Don't tech 'em up like the poets does, 

Tel theyr all too fine fer use ! — • 
Say they was 'leven in the fambily — ■ 

Two beds, and the chist, below, 
And the trundle-beds that each belt three, 

And the clock and the old bureau. 

Then blow the horn at the old back-door 

Tel the echoes all halloo, 
A.nd the childern gethers home onc't more, 

Jest as they ust to do : 



10 



'.'. 



A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS 



Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes, 

With Tomps and Elias, too, 
A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums 

And the old Red White and Blue ! 

Blow and blow tel the sound draps low 

As the moan of the whipperwill, 
And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo, 

All sleepin' at Bethel Hill: 
Blow and call tel the faces all 

Shine out in the back-log's blaze, 
And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall 

As they did in the airly days. 




12 



OLD MAN'S NURSERY RHYME 

I 

N the jolly winters 
Of the long-ago, 
It was not so cold as now— 

O! No! No! 
Then, as I remember, 

Snowballs to eat 
Were as good as apples now 

And every bit as sweet ! 

13 



OLD MAN S NURSERY RHYME 

IT 

In the jolly winters 

Of the dead-and-gone. 
Bub was warm as summer, 

With his red mitts on, — ■ 
Just in his little waist- 

And-pants all together. 
Who ever heard him growl 

About cold weather? 

Ill 

In the jolly winters 

Of the long-ago — 
Was it half so cold as now? 

O ! No ! No ! 
W T ho caught his death o' cold, 

Making prints of men 
Flat-backed in snow that now's 

Twice as cold asrain? 




J 



OLD MAN S NURSERY RHYME 

IV 

In the jolly winters 

Of the dead-and-gone, 
Startin' out rabbit-huntin' — 

Early as the dawn, — 
Who ever froze his fingers, 

Ears, heels, or toes, — 
Or'd 'a' cared if he had? 

Nobody knows ! 



Nights by the kitchen-stove, 

Shellin' white and red 
Corn m the skillet, and 

Sleepin' four abed ! 
Ah! the jolly winters 

Of the long-ago! 
We were not as old as now- 

O! No! No! 



16 



" MYLO JONES'S WIFE " "" 

MYLO JONES'S wife" was all 
I heerd, mighty near, last Fall- 
Visitun relations down 
T'other side of Morgantown ! 
Mylo Jones's wife she does 
This and that, and "those" and "thus" !- 
Can't 3 bide babies in her sight — 
Ner no childern, day and night, 
Whoopin' round the premises— 
Ner no nothin' else, I guess ! 

17 



" mylo jones's wife " 



Mylo Jones's wife she 'lows 

She's the boss of her own house ! — 

Mylo — consequences is — ■ 

Stays whare things seem some like his,—' 

Uses, mostly, with the stock — 

Coaxin' "Old Kate" not to balk, 

Ner kick hoss-flies' branes out, ner 

Act, I s'pose, so much like her! 

Yit the wimmern-folks tells you 

She's perfection. — Yes they do! 

Mylo's wife she says she's found 

Home hain't home with men-folks round 

When they's work like hern to do — 

Picklin' pears and butchern, too, 

And a-rendern lard, and then 

Cookin' fer a pack of men 

To come trackin' up the flore 

She's scrubbed tel she'll scrub no more!— 

Yit she'd keep things clean ef they 

Made her scrub tel Jedgmunt Day ! 



Mylo Jones's wife she sews 
Carpet-rags and patches clothes 

18 



MYLO JONES S WIFE 

Jest year in and out! — and yit 
Whare's the livin' use of it? 
She asts Mylo that. — And he 
Gits back whare he'd ruther be. 
With his team;— jest plows — and don't 
Never sware — like some folks won't! 
Think ef he'd cut loose, I gum ! 
J D he'p his heavenly chances some! 

Mylo's wife don't see no use, 
Ner no reason ner excuse 
Fer his pore relations to 
Hang round like they alius do! 
Thare 'bout onc't a year — and she — 
She jest ga'nts 'em, folks tells me, 
On spiced pears ! — Pass Mylo one, 
He says "No, he don't chuse none!'* 
Workin'men like Mylo they 
! D ort to have meat ev'ry day ! 

Dad-burn Mylo Jones's wife ! % 

Ruther rake a blame caseknife 
'Crost my wizzen than to see 
Sich a womern rulin' me! — 



20 



" mylo jones's wife 

Ruther take and turn in and 
Raise a fool mule-colt by hand ! 
Mylo, though — od-rot the man ! — 
Jest keeps ca'm — like some folks can- 
And 'lows sich as her, I s'pose, 
Is Man's he'pmeet! — Mercy knows! 



21 



WORTERMELON TIME 



OLD wortermelon time is a-comin' round again, 
And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, 
Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin — 
Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. 

Oh ! it's in the sandy soil wortermelons does the best, 
And it's thare they'll lay and waller in the sunshine and 
the dew 
Tel they wear all the green streaks clean off of theyr 
breast ; 
And you bet I ain't a-findin' any fault with them ; air 
you? 

22 



WORTERMELON TIME 



They ain't no better thing in the vegetable line ; 

And they don't need much 'tendin', as ev'ry farmer 
knows ; 
And when theyr ripe and ready fer to pluck from the vine, 

I want to say to you theyr the best fruit that grows. 

It's some likes the yeller-core, and some likes the red, 
And it's some says "The Little Californy" is the best; 

But the sweetest slice of all I ever wedged in my head, 
Is the old "Edingburg Mounting-sprout," of the west. 

You don't want no punkins nigh your wortermelon 
vines — 
'Cause, some-way-another, they'll spile your melons, 
shore ; — 
I've seed 'em taste like punkins, from the core to the rines, 
Which may be a fact you have heerd of before. 

But your melons that's raised right and 'tended to with 
care, 
You can walk around amongst 'em with a parent's pride 
and joy, 
And thump 'em on the heads with as fatherly a air 
As ef each one of them was your little girl er boy. 

23 



WORTERMELON TIME 

I joy in my hart jest to hear that rippin' sound 
When you split one down the back and jolt the halves 
in two, 
And the friends you love the best is gethered all around — 
And you says unto your sweethart, "Oh, here's the core 
fer you !" 

And I like to slice 'em up in big pieces fer 'em all, 
Espeshally the childern, and watch theyr high delight 

As one by one the rines with theyr pink notches falls, 
And they holler fer some more, with unquenched 
appetite. 

Boys takes to it natchurl, and I like to see 'em eat — 
A slice of wortermelon's like a frenchharp in theyr 
hands, 
And when they "saw" it through theyr mouth sich music 
can't be beat — 
'Cause it's music both the sperit and the stummick 
understands. 

Oh, they's more in wortermelons than the purty-colored 
meat, 
And the overflowin' sweetness of the worter squshed 
betwixt 

24 



■ZMf 




WORTERMELON TIME 

The up'ard and the down'ard motions of a feller's teeth, 
And it's the taste of ripe old age and juicy childhood 
mixed. 

Fer I never taste a melon but my thoughts flies away 
To the summertime of youth ; and again I see the dawn, 

And the fadin' afternoon of the long summer day, 

And the dusk and dew a-fallin', and the night a-comin' 
on. 

And thare's the corn around us, and the lispin' leaves and 
trees, 
And the stars a-peekin' down on us as still as silver 
mice, - 
And us boys in the wortermelons on our hands and knees, 
And the new-moon hangin' ore us like a yeller-cored 
slice. 

Oh! it's wortermelon time is a-comin' round again, 
And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, 

Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin — 
Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. 



26 



THE BROOK-SONG 



L 



ITTLE brook ! Little brook ! 
You have such a happy look — 
Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and 
curve and crook — 
And your ripples, one and one, 
Reach each other's hands and run 

Like laughing little children in the sun ! 

27 



THE BROOK-SONG 



Little brook, sing to me : 
Sing about a bumblebee 
That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mum- 
blingly, 
Because he wet the film 
Of his wings, and had to swim, 

While the water-bugs raced round and 
laughed at him ! 

Little brook — sing a song 
Of a leaf that sailed along 
Down the golden-braided centre of your current 
swift and strong, 
And a dragon-fly that lit 
On the tilting rim of it, 

And rode away and wasn't scared a bit. 

And sing — how oft in glee 
Came a truant boy like me, 
Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody, 
Till the gurgle and refrain 
Of your music in his brain 

Wrought a happiness as keen to him as 
pain. 

28 



THE BROOK-SONG 



Little brook — laugh and leap ! 
Do not let the dreamer weep : 
Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in 
softest sleep ; 
And then sing soft and low 
Through his dreams of long ago — - 

Sing back to him the rest he used to know! 





29 



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